


Eau du resistance

by llwydion



Series: straight faced with misery (sw and pacific rim au) [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: ALL ABOARD THE ANGST TRAIN, F/M, Multiple Pov, it's hard to come up with jaeger names, playing fast and loose with canon timing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 06:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14302956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llwydion/pseuds/llwydion
Summary: Saw Guerrera meets Jyn Erso when she is a small, tiny child with eyes the color of the sky and dreams as big as it.“I want to be a pilot, Uncle!” she declares, all three-foot-eight of her standing regally on her springy bed. “I’m going to beat up all the kaiju so that we can be safe for once and for all! You, Mommy, Dad, even the Krennics down the road. I’m going to be the greatest pilot there ever was.”He looks at her, and all he can do is smile and nod, because she is young and untouched by the realities of war. He sees them in LOCCENT every day – the obsessiveness with which the techs check the joints they put in, the quiet mutterings of K-Science as they try to predict the next event, the forced cheeriness that the hazmat teams develop in the few times they are on base, the intense focus of the pilots as they drift.How do you tell a young girl with stars in her eyes and hope in her heart that there are monsters out there who can never be beat?





	Eau du resistance

**Author's Note:**

> title still from "Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea" by FoB (wow, two quotes from the same story? what is this)
> 
> I really, really, really loved Rogue One. And so, here we are, Rogue One but in the Pacific Rim 'verse.

**i.**

When you are young, the Krennic boys down the street taunt and jeer at you. They pull your braids and you stick your tongue out at them and punch them good and hard, like how your Uncle Saw taught you. It turns into a scuffle, and you emerge looking much more scuffled and beaten than they are, because three on one is never fair ( _and you’re a girl_ , one of them sneers. You kick him again for good measure).

When you go home, your mother cleans your bruises, bandages your scuffed knuckles, and presses tender kisses to your forehead. Your father gives you a stern talking-to, but there is a hidden twinkle in his eye that makes you think he’s okay with how things turned out after all.

You remember this day for the rest of your life, because this was the first time you stood up for yourself. In the years after that first, devasting attack on Tokyo, when all you have left of your mother is the wire-wrapped crystal hanging around your neck, you remember. Your father is a well-known engineer, and as you hold his large hand, staring at the ruins of your once-prosperous city, you know that you will never forget.

You are strong, and you will not break.

* * *

 

**ii.**

Saw Guerrera meets Jyn Erso when she is a small, tiny child with eyes the color of the sky and dreams as big as it.

“I want to be a pilot, Uncle!” she declares, all three-foot-eight of her standing regally on her springy bed. “I’m going to beat up all the kaiju so that we can be safe for once and for all! You, Mommy, Dad, even the Krennics down the road. I’m going to be the greatest pilot there ever was.”

He looks at her, and all he can do is smile and nod, because she is young and untouched by the realities of war. He sees them in LOCCENT every day – the obsessiveness with which the techs check the joints they put in, the quiet mutterings of K-Science as they try to predict the next event, the forced cheeriness that the hazmat teams develop in the few times they are on base, the intense focus of the pilots as they drift.

How do you tell a young girl with stars in her eyes and hope in her heart that there are monsters out there who can never be beat?

* * *

 

**iii.**

When she is thirteen, her father leaves her with her uncle Saw, in the Nagasaki Shatterdome.

“I’m going to go help all these people, Jyn. I know I can, I know how to improve things so our Jaegers can be better and stronger and beat the kaiju. So please, stardust, please stop crying. You can still call me, I won’t be gone for long, alright?”

She nods through the tears and clutches at her mother’s necklace for comfort. The clear stone sits warm and soothing in the hollow of her throat.

Her father looks at her uncle.

“Please, keep her safe for me, Saw.”

Her uncle nods.

Her father leaves, and does not come back.

One month passes. Then two. Then before she knows it, she’s a year older, and she’s spoken exactly twice with her father. Once was after a particularly close miss – they had to call in Tacit Dawn from Vladivostok as backup, because Eden Luna is out of commission since Gallia lost her mind and Saber Chrome wasn’t built for taking hard hits and the Tokyo Jaegers are defending the Miracle Mile. She sees the pilots afterwards (one of the few perks of living in a Shatterdome is the number of famous pilots she sees around), and Tano and Jarrus are one of the best, but they look pretty beat up. Skywalker and Kenobi are the best, absolute living legends, but even they look like they need a good night’s sleep.

(She’s not surprised when Tano and Jarrus die from neural overload in two years, or when Skywalker and Kenobi hand in their resignation after Grievous, four years down the line. It’s a hard battle, and they have been fighting it for over a decade. Besides, Skywalker’s kids are just as good as them, if not better.)

Her father calls in the next day, sounding worried, and she does her best to reassure him. She also does her best to keep the accusations out of her voice, because he hasn’t called her in four months but surely he’s doing important work.

The next time her father calls is on her birthday. It’s not a long call, because he’s busy and has to get back to work, but at the end of it, he tells her he loves her and whispers two words.

“Run, stardust.”

The words send a chill down her spine, because it’s their code for something going terribly, horribly wrong.

The next morning, she wakes up, and the Internet is exploding with rumors of a secret American government-sanctioned experiment gone horribly wrong, and all of a sudden there is a kaiju rampaging around in San Francisco once more, and all of the Jaegers are out of commission. It’s like K-Day all over again, but much, much worse, because this time it was their own fault.

The news report goes on to list the number of casualties, and the list grows by the minute. Her father is on there, one of the very first names, and that can only mean one thing.

The taste of betrayal is bitter on her tongue, and she scatters her love for her father like ash on the wind.

* * *

 

**iv.**

The twenty-four weeks she spends at the Jaeger Academy are both the easiest and hardest in her life.

The instructors tell them to empty their minds, don’t bring anything into the Drift with you, it’s easiest that way. Learn to let go of your attachments. She almost snickers the first time she hears that phrase, because her parents are dead and she doesn’t have any friends her age. Just her Uncle Saw, who is too busy running a Shatterdome to deal with raising a teenage girl as well.

She empties her mind so fast that she is one of the first to ever Drift in their group. It’s with another fellow cadet named Rook who is twitchy but surprisingly good at keeping things strictly professional (and she supposes that’s a good thing, because she saw bits of him that she never wanted to know about another human being, and he probably saw how she smiled when beat the Krennic siblings when she was five). They’re tentative friends after that, and they agree to never drift with each other again.

He even introduces her to his roommates, Imwe and Malbus. They’ve yet to drift together, he says, but they’re childhood friends and sometimes it’s creepy how well they know each other. Neither of them is particularly interested in piloting though, and that’s a damn shame. They’d make a great team.

Then the third trimester rolls around, and all three of her friends wash out. Bodhi walks into LOCCENT one day and is immediately entranced by the amount of information a mission controller needs to process, and signs himself up on the fast track to that as soon as they return. She bids him farewell fondly, because he’s like the little brother she’s never had, and promises that she’ll see him again before long.

As for Chirrut and Baze, well, one day they take down the Fightmaster, a middle-aged formidable former Ranger Billaba (who trained under Windu himself), and from then on they’re badgered into the role. Having two Fightmasters is unusual but not unheard of, and in his spare time Chirrut decides to also pick up some psych analyst qualifications.

One day, she’s sparring with Chirrut when she literally smacks her staff into one Cassian Andor.

“Whoops, sorry. Didn’t see you there.”

He looks at her (in disdain, she thinks), and raises an eyebrow.

“Well, watch where you’re going next time. Can’t have a woman who doesn’t recognize where the enemy even is, can we?”

She flushes hot with shame, because there goes another one of those bastards who’s looking down on her because she’s a girl.

“Fight me.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, fight me. If I beat you, you apologize to me about that remark.”

“Look, I’m not here to get into fights…”

But it’s too late. A crowd has already gathered, and the air is charged with anticipation. It’s not every day that you get to see two of the best cadets fight it out, after all.

“Fine.”

Chirrut and Baze smirk at her from the sidelines. She rolls her eyes. Then the ref calls start, and she hones in on the fight.

They’re more evenly matched than what she imagined him to be. She’s aggressive with her attacks, he’s defensive, but both of them recognize the merit in the other’s fighting style. The first few blows they trade are exploratory; a few taps to the guard, with no obvious holes.

Later, spectators will inform them that their fight lasted more than forty minutes. But in the moment, she feels exhilarated. He’s keeping up with her blows, and she his, and honestly if this is what Chirrut and Baze feel every time they spar with each other it’s no wonder they decided to become Fightmasters. There is fighting, there is sparring, and then there’s this.

She drops him, one last time, and he holds his hands up in surrender. There’s a new measure of respect in his eyes.

“You fight well, Erso. And I apologize for my statement earlier.”

“Thanks, Andor. Apology accepted.”

And, well, it’s not exactly friendship, but it’s a truce.

* * *

 

**v.**

It’s funny how life works, he thinks, as he stares at the woman who beat him in the Kwoon Room half a year ago. The same woman who is now standing across from him, his potential co-pilot.

Next to them, Fightmaster and sometime-Psych Analyst Chirrut is telling them about how this works.

“It’s like a practice Drift, but on another level. Not quite at the depth that you reach when you actually pilot a Jaeger, but closer than the simulations we run with all cadets. This is to test if you two are truly Drift-compatible, for one, and to weed out any nasty surprises you may have hiding in your memories, for two.”

Erso raises an eyebrow at him. “Nasty surprises?”

At the same time, he wonders about a phrase that the blind man uses. “Truly Drift-compatible?”

Chirrut, though he can’t physically see, still somehow senses that eyebrow raise and grins sheepishly. “You’d be surprised at some of the stuff Baze has in his head. Or me, for that matter. It’s why we’re not pilots. And yes, you two are Drift-compatible, have been since your showdown in the Kwoon Room.”

“Ah. Okay then, let’s get this show on the road.”

He nods his agreement, and together they are strapped into an empty Conn-Pod. She on the right, he on the left.

“Pilots on board and ready to connect. Initiating neural handshake in five… four…”

The digits count down, and they take deep breaths before plunging in.

“Remember, do not chase the RABIT. Stay in the Drift. The Drift is silence.”

_A young girl, getting beaten up on the pavement. Above her looms the skeleton of a kaiju._

_A boy with angry, resigned eyes, staring down at his parents’ graves._

_A classroom. A park. A bright, sunny beach._

They gasp as they emerge from the memories, and above them, the bland monotone of the AI speaks once more.

“Right hemisphere calibrated. Left hemisphere calibrated. Drift is holding steady.”

_Erso?_

He hears a distinctly feminine voice bark a short laugh.

_Please, I think we’re past the point of last names if we’re in each others’ heads._

_Alright then, Jyn._

_Cassian._

It’s a short but successful test, and when they emerge, both of them are still caught up in the ghostly Drift-bond that has developed between them.

They get a Jaeger. It’s a sleek, compact Mark-4 equipped with the standard set of weaponry, plus a set of fangblades. They call it Rogue Electra, and she is beautiful and quiet and deadly.

* * *

 

**vi.**

“Rogue Electra! Rogue Electra, please respond!”

“Right hemisphere, you are out of alignment.” K2, their on-board AI, keeps repeating the error message. It's all he can do, after all, without breaking too much of his programmed protocols.

_Jyn! Stay with me, Jyn Erso! Damn you!_

She blinks back black spots and bites down on her tongue, hard enough to draw blood. The pain helps with the grogginess threatening to overwhelm her.

Around her, red lights are flashing. Right, they’re currently out in the field, with Bodhi in their ears and K2 helping them and Saber Chrome down. This kaiju (dubbed DS since apparently it looks like a Nintendo DS but larger and how the hell does that even work, anatomically) packs a particularly nasty punch with its club-like nose.

_Jyn! We need to move, now!_

And he shows her an image of the dark, hulking beast heading straight for the Shatterdome. She clenches her limbs and forces them to move forward, one painful, agonizing step at a time.

They are too slow, and a quarter of Nagasaki is destroyed by the time they manage to take it down.

They can’t go back to the Shatterdome, and so they are rerouted to Tokyo, along with Saber Chrome.

“Vladivostok will pick up the slack, so please, just take care of yourself, alright?” Bodhi asks them.

It’s all Jyn can do to voice her agreement, because her limbs are still sluggish with fear and pain and weakness.

When they are released from medical (concussion on her end, psychic overextension on Cassian’s), she learns that Saw Guerrera’s name is on the casualty list. Bodhi, Chirrut, and Baze are safe, but her uncle is gone. Her uncle, and half of the Shatterdome’s support staff.

“Damn it!”

She goes to the Kwoon Room (which is just slightly different, but it rankles her), and she punches a bag until her knuckles are bloody. Then she joins Cassian to debrief.

“The UN is wondering if it is worth rebuilding Nagasaki and its ‘dome,” President Mon Mothma says. Others echo her on this. Bail Organa, newly elected Secretary General, is a fierce supporter of the PPDC, but even she cannot win in the face of massive economic drainage.

Jyn can’t take it anymore. Nagasaki is _her_ city, has been since she arrived as curious youngster in search of something bigger than herself.

“You can’t not rebuild it! Nagasaki is a major economic center, and the only reason Tokyo and Vladivostok can be so far apart without any major issues. There are half a million people out there still, waiting for help and support from their government. Beg for funds, scatter your troops amongst the populace! If you give way here, to an enemy who will only keep coming back stronger and better, you have condemned us all. Nagasaki is vital if you want any hope of defeating the kaiju, for once and for all.”

Some UN council member looks at her before speaking. “You’re asking us to pour funds into Nagasaki on nothing but hope.”

“Rebellions are built on hope. And isn’t that what we are?”

* * *

 

**vii.**

She becomes famous for her little speech to the commanders. Hell, even _Cassian_ looked at her after that meeting and asked, “Are you sure you’re the same Jyn Erso I have in my head? You know, the one who curses me out for not leaving her hot water in the shower?”

She laughs, and maybe cries a little. It’s been a long year, and her uncle is dead, and she is so, so glad that they agreed to rebuilt her city.

 _Our city_.

She nods.

 _Our city_.

* * *

 

**viii.**

Then things go to shit, as they always, inevitably do. That’s life, after all. Life with kaiju, that is.

They’re having a quiet night out, just the two of them and the Tokyo skyline, and sometimes Cassian looks at her in a way that makes her blush, and she doesn’t know why. They are having another one of those moments, when the klaxons sound, the moment is lost, and they hurry inside to suit up.

The kaiju they’re facing tonight, Bodhi informs them, is like a bigger, badder version of DS. They’re calling it DS-1.

“That’s a terrible name, and you know it.”

“Hey, don’t blame me for it, I’m just the voice in the ear!”

Cassian chuckles, and they settle into their usual, easy rhythm of bondspeak and comfortable silence born from years of drifting together.

Just before they reach their position, he sends one quick thought at her.

_After this, can I ask you a question?_

She blinks.

_After this, yeah._

And they focus in on their mission.

“Water’s dark. No signs of it.”

Bodhi tenses. Not seeing anything is never a good sign. The blip grows closer, and he warns his pilots of it.

“It’s approaching you from your right. Keep an eye out.”

“Still negative.”

Chirrut and Baze, as Fightmasters, are obliged to stop by every now and then to observe a fight.

“Jyn,” Chirrut calls. “Do you remember that technique we were working on?”

“Which one? The blind-seeing one, or the trip one?”

“The first one. Try that.”

She reaches, and oh, there’s the nasty bugger.

“Invisibility, I think. Or at least camouflage, we don’t have visual confirmation on it but it’s definitely there.”

Bodhi swears under his breath, reports it to K-Science, and turns his attention back.

Then invisible jaws clamp around Rogue Electra’s torso, and their world explodes in pain.

* * *

 

**ix.**

Bodhi doesn’t, can’t, believe it. The green blip on his screen is gone. He starts to shake, and Chirrut sits him down gently while Baze takes his spot.

“Signal lost! I repeat, signal lost! Saber Chrome, are you ready and in position to defend?”

“Saber is ready and waiting.”

“Incoming from your twelve!”

“What? Where? I don’t see anything – ”

Another Jaeger lost.

“Call in the Tokyo reinforcements! DS-1 is coming, and we’re down both our Jaegers!”

Then Rogue Electra, badly damaged, crashes out of the sea and wraps its arms around an invisible patch of air. For a moment, it looks like nothing has happened, then the head starts to emerge.

“Rogue Electra, Rogue, can you hear me? If you can, please respond!”

Nothing but the crackle of static.

“Comms are down. We need someone to go in as a distraction!”

In that moment, the three of them look at each other. Then they are shuffled onto a helicopter, and Bodhi realizes that in another life, he maybe could have been a pilot. Baze’s shooting away with the large gun. It’s not nearly enough to cause actual harm, but it’s good enough to do some damage, at least. And Chirrut is guiding them so Baze can make his shots hit the hardest with minimal effort.

For that, they are swatted out of the sky and into the ocean below.

Cassian is pretty sure he’s broken something in his back. His legs aren’t moving quite right, and every step is pain. But he looks over at the woman next to him, sees the fierce determination that he loves writ into every line of her face, and keeps going.

Jyn is not going down without a fight, and if she is going down, at least she will have her revenge on the beast which destroyed her city once again. She swings the right arm around and stabs a fangblade into the kaiju’s throat to keep it in place.

In the last moments of her life, Jyn Erso looks into the bright blue maw of a kaiju and places her trust in her partner.

The plasma cannon discharges six times, and DS-1 drops.

Rogue Electra slowly sinks as well, until it is covered by the waves.

By the time Eden Luna, piloted by the newly promoted Skywalker twins, makes it to Nagasaki as backup, DS-1 is dead and the city is in flames.

Their bodies are never found.

* * *

 

**x.**

For their achievements and heroicism in rebuilding the city the first time around and defending it the second time, their names are immortalized up on the memorial wall in newly-rebuilt Nagasaki. There are stories written about them. Tales, songs, academic essays. There is a massive outpouring of support for the PPDC.

In the dark days to come, people will repeat the legend of Rogue Electra. They will tell stories of Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus, of K2 and Bodhi Rook. Of Cassian Andor, who loved a woman enough to follow her to his death. Of Jyn Erso, the woman with hope.

They tell these tales, and it gives them hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Jaegers in this story:  
> Rogue Electra - Erso and Andor  
> Eden Luna - Windu and Gallia (originally), then Skywalker twins  
> Saber Chrome - Tano and Jarrus  
> Tacit Dawn - Kenobi and Skywalker Sr. (because yes our dear obi-wan has lived! and returned to piloting! but this hasn't happened yet in his arc of the story, so stay tuned for that)


End file.
